The next day, Danny’s chest triangle lit up after breakfast and told him to visit a man named Great who was also Good and So-So and then back to Great again. He knew where to look.

“Piggies,” he grumbled while looking inside that cop car on the way. “What’s next in town? Marshmallow men? Confetti parachuters?”

Like any superhero, he was simply going to walk through that fence ahead separating the town’s two sims.

Made it! But in turning around Danny finds he can’t go back through the barrier from this direction. Power neutralized on this side of town? He tries to melt the top of a nearby building with his laser vision. It doesn’t work! Yes, he’s a mere mortal again. He doesn’t like it. Onward to the hotel.

He instead decides to walk up the stairs straight ahead to the town’s raised park where Rocky was performing on a much larger piano this day, grand in style. “Shut up,” he says softly from the top of the stairs. “Shut up!” he then shouts toward the animal pianist. “Shut up!!”

Third time Rocky finally heard him. He stopped playing the 2nd movement of John Cage’s “4’33″” and turned around. “Great,” he muttered. “The Jester has arrived.”

“Yes. John,” answers Bettie. “‘Suite for Toy Piano.’ Debuted 1948 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Not far from our user’s home. Very close, say, if it were 5, 6, 7 years down the road. If users are even around. We may be on our own by then. Us down here, alone with our actions, our consequences. Might be nice, Nancy. Just us, this town, its inhabitants. The Atoll Continent as a whole. Sansara can go to hell.”

Nancy frowns. “I don’t know. I like the old continent. We should go visit the climbable beanstalk (in Welsh) sometime.” Rocky’s piano tinkling ends and he gets up.

“Babble,” replied Bettie. Then: “Shush. The rant part of Rocky’s performance piece is starting. Let’s dance while he speaks.”

—–

Each one of us must now look to himself. That which formerly held us together and gave meaning to our occupations was our belief in God. When we transferred this belief first to heroes, then to things, we began to walk our separate paths. That island that we have grown to think no longer exists to which we might have retreated to escape from the impact of the world, lies, as it ever did, within each one of our hearts. Towards that final tranquility, which today we so desperately need, any integrating occupation–music and writing are two of them, rightly used–can serve as a guide.

“Rehearsals were already suppose to start, Nancy. We were gonna be stars. That globe would obviously hafta go.”

“I guess we’ll just have to be each other’s star, then.”

“My thoughts exactly. Let’s go get some cake.”

—–

“It’s a very patriotic town, Bettie. But what is this Us of A?”

“It’s a place our user might want to get away from soon. War is brewing. Two little bitty people commanding militaries with their tiny gestures. We’re safe down here. As long as the infrastructure remains.”

She glared over at him again, he with his own piece of delicious cake. It was a small town. Not a lot of restaurants to choose from, for example. They’d keep running into each other. One day they might be friends. But not today. Too much real world mirroring.

“Well,” determined Little Tonshi Ashokan while staring up at the bottom of the Lapara Airport from her waterfall hammock. “If I can’t have a wife right now I’ll at least try to make some friends.”

She hops off the hammock and begins strolling the Crooked Pine Walkway toward Calypso Rock where the terminal teleport is stashed, right beside her *still* unfinished house. She thinks again how horribly lazy she is, never completing anything of note. The airport certainly remains a mess. She “borrows” her other, much larger abode from neighbor Simple when needed. And the “Bible Truth” play has now been put on hold thanks to that inbred town council bending to the wishes of those stupid protesters from the southeast sector (R). She may never act the role of Bettie. Back to being just plain old Little Tonshi, the nutjob from the hills, the vampire with no fangs.

“But Calypso Rock is so sacred,” she counters herself while approaching. “This is where I created Nancy, my greatest, perhaps my *only* accomplishment. And maybe that’s all I need.” She steps inside.